I paint a little every day

Perspective

I believe I come by this view honestly through years of people talking about the perspective being wrong and my arguing that it is absolutely accurate. It’s apparently wrong in different ways to different people. I’m reminded of the ‘Lamentation over the Dead Christ’ by Mantegna. To me Christ’s head is too large and feet too small. I’ve read that the paintings perspective is laid out very accurately. A little role reversal there and I’m rather disheartened to think that I might be one of ‘those people’.

I think that what many art critics and teachers talk too little about is picture size and viewpoint. The Lamentation isn’t very large (27” x 32”) but I bet it would look different to me if I were standing a few feet away from it in a gallery. It’s interesting that the Lamentation looks fine to me if it is small on screen but wrong if enlarged to full screen. I have a fairly big computer screen. If I were to give advice to artists about perspective it would be “Make it look right to you when you are painting it, in your studio, on your easel”. Some people will think it’s right and some will think it’s wrong. Ignore them.